National Library of Sweden says “No Deal with OCLC” on WorldCat

Posted on 21. Dec, 2011 by Carl Whitaker in Uncategorized

As reported by David Rapp in Library Journal on December 21, the National Library of Sweden has announced that they have ended five years of negotiations with OCLC on participation in WorldCat based on the National Library’s fundamental disagreement with OCLC’s record use policy.  According to the National Library’s press release:

“Some time into the negotiations, OCLC presented certain conditions for how bibliographic records taken from WorldCat for cataloguing were to be used in Libris. These conditions could not be accepted by the National Library. A fundamental condition for the entire Libris collaboration is voluntary participation. Libraries that catalogue in Libris can take out all their bibliographic records and incorporate them instead into another system, or use them in anyway the library finds suitable. The National Library makes no claim of controlling how bibliographic records taken from Libris are used.”

Rapp’s article concludes with a reference to the pending SkyRiver v. OCLC lawsuit:

“OCLC’s restrictions on record use have long been a point of contention. In an unrelated, ongoing antitrust lawsuit filed in July 2010 against OCLC by SkyRiver Technology Solutions and Innovative Interfaces, the plaintiffs singled out OCLC’s prohibition on members sharing bibliographic data for criticism. SkyRiver, OCLC’s competitor in bibliographic services, “imposes no restrictions on subsequent use of bibliographic metadata that its customers obtain from the SkyRiver database,” according to SkyRiver’s online FAQ.”